I've just returned from a meeting with some of my peers and I find I'm taking issue with some of their working practices.

What made my blood boil was how one of the attendees thought it acceptable to make huge amounts of profit from selling illegal card sharing IPTV boxes to expats. He also thought it acceptable to remove cards from noticeboards posted by his competition.

Nothing wrong with that you might think. I do!

Why?

It is not only disrespectful it shows contempt. If his product is good, it will sell on its' own merits regardless of the competition.

It's disrespectful. Somebody else has had to spend their money having cards printed and spent their time and effort in posting the cards in the first place If he can't stand competition he shouldn't be in business.

Making in the region of €100 per box is ripping people off. It shows the contempt he has for you, his clients. It also shows the contempt he has for the law. Stealing premium paid for content and charging you to view it is highly illegal as he does not have the rights to rebroadcast the programs.

Watching Freeview satellite TV, on the other hand, is not illegal.

Satellite Internet providers are being falsely accused of being overpriced and a rip off when in actual fact, you're really being ripped off by the IPTV/card share merchants.

It also shows how TV is valued above all else. You're quite happy to pay €700 to install a €150 dish and a €50 card share box that is illegal but unwilling to pay €169 to install satellite internet equipment that is legal.

What does that say about peoples morals. I'm not being judgmental, I'm just exposing the sad truth that is out there. The worst thing about it is you seem to enjoy being ripped of just so you can watch TV.

If you all told these profiteerers to stick their grossly overpriced products where the sun don't shine, you'd soon see the prices come down. But you won't, you'll just go on paying whatever they ask and they know it.

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Seeing as our friends at Microsoft have just abandoned something in the region of 500 million XP users (according to reports), why not upgrade to a Mac for the cost of a DVD.

You what! You're kidding, it can't be done - surely not?

Well, yes it can, sort of.

You will know that I've been extolling the virtues of Linux Ubuntu for some time now because of it's ability to use the same hardware that you've been running Windows XP on for years. Linux Ubuntu is based on an age old Operating System (OS) called Unix that's been around since the dawn of computers. The Mac OS is also based on Unix.

Now, it make perfect sense to upgrade to Linux Ubuntu. Why? Becasue you no longer have support for Windows XP and the latest iteration of Windows - 8.1 - is such an awful pile of junk, it should be avoided like the plague. In addition, you will need to buy a new PC to run the newer Windows OS because it's unlikely run on your old hardware at all. Linux will!

Ubuntu have just released their latest version of the most popular Linux OS to date, 14.04 LTS (long term support). This means it has full support and updates for the next five years at least, before the next release. Compare that to Microsofts 3 year program.

Now compare this - Linux Ubuntu is FREE, Microsoft will charge you to upgrade their system. BUT, you can't run the latest version of Windows on your old XP machine (not that you'd want to) - you CAN run the latest version of Ubuntu though.

You cannot buy an English version of Windows in Spain without jumping through a few hoops. Similarly, getting Windows in English delivered to Spain is just as much a pain.

Have you noticed you can't buy a new PC sporting Windows 7 in the UK from the big chains like PC World. That's because sales of Windows 8 has been so dire, Microsoft won't let them.

This is not rocket science.

What does this mean for me?

It means you're running an OS that is more secure and is FREE. You have FREE community support. You have tons of FREE software to do just about anything. You will not be running an OS that is a dream for hackers to break into.

When you get an infected email from your friends hacked email account, it will probably not affect you. Why? Because Windows viruses don't affect any other OS.

In five years time, the next version of Linux Ubuntu will still be FREE. There'll have been 2 more versions of Windows in that time. If you need to replace your PC in a couple of years, you can buy one a lot cheaper without Windows on it and install Ubuntu, or just buy one with Ubuntu already installed. Even if it's not the most up to date version of Ubuntu, it won't cost a penny to update it to the current version.

You can download Linux Ubuntu here and there are full instructions how do put it on to a DVD and install it too.


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